


After the Fall

by LikeMmmCookies



Series: Angels In Our Veins [2]
Category: American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Sexual Content, idk if this counts as a happy ending, unhealthy relationships are unhealthy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 16:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16478684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LikeMmmCookies/pseuds/LikeMmmCookies
Summary: Sequel to I Want to Destroy Something Beautiful“I don't think there's anything I can say that will make you happy,” Michael tells her.Mallory stretches onto her toes and nuzzles her nose across his cheek. “Then don't say anything. Just be here with me tonight.”He finds her lips and they meet in a hesitant kiss. The curve of his full mouth against hers is sinful in its rightness. She winds her fingers through his long locks and over his chest. He feels leaner and harder than she remembers, but the adoring tilt of his mouth and the energy between them is the same. His body against hers is an apology, a plea, a prayer.Nothing will keep us apart





	After the Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for your lovely responses to part 1! I enjoyed hearing from you so much and I had so much fun writing it that I couldn't resist giving them some kind of ending. This is personally how I'd like to see the season end (and not with our baby boy dead *cries forever*)
> 
> The "flashback" portion happens before/during/after Episode 7 and runs a bit into the beginning of 8.
> 
> Come say hi on Tumblr @ bisexual-dilemmas :)

**Now**

Michael finally turns his attention to Mallory. Every second of her presence is excruciating and he struggles to keep it off his face. He can tell she remembers, too. Her dark gaze tells him that much, as well as the utter look of _betrayal_ on her face.

He makes the mistake of brushing up against her mind.

_I loved him..._

He makes a hasty retreat, mentally stumbling back before she can sense him.

And when her attack comes, he's still turning those words over in his head. He isn't prepared. Their battle is brutal and she concedes no ground.

The last thing he sees is the broken line of her lips as he drowns in shallow water, too weak to pull himself up, to even struggle.

And the last thing he thinks is that _she's right_. He deserves this.

Darkness comes for him.

 

* * *

 

**Before**

“My child,” murmurs the voice, sweet as honey and soaring like a morning sky. “Oh my sweet daughter.” Strong arms wrap around Mallory, bronze skin like a vice. But it is comforting instead of restricting. A support, not a cage.

Finally she steps back from Mallory. Her face is blazing white, pure starlight, the sun and moon and everything in between constrained and glowing through a vaguely human form graced with enormous silver wings.

Mallory's brow knits. “Where am I?”

The woman brushes back a lock of Mallory's hair. “What has he done to you, my little angel?”

 _What?_ Mallory's thoughts are racing and in that instant, she's aware of the heavy drag from her back. Two points of weight, arching her spine. She shivers and her wings shiver with her. _My wings..._

“Angel?” Mallory's voice is hoarse. “What's going on? What is this?”

The woman strokes Mallory's cheek. “When you wake, you'll think it's a dream.”

“But it's not?”

She shakes her head. “No. I had to speak to you. We have such little time.” She hesitates, her eyes darting into the bright, empty space around them. “If my Creator finds out I'm here, _interfering,_ they will be...displeased.”

Mallory's mouth dries. “Your Creator? You mean...God?”

The angel's mouth twists in a sad smile. “You are the daughter of an angel, Mallory.”

“My mother was human,” she insists.

The woman laughs, a sparkling, musical sound. “You think something as inconsequential as human gender matters to me? We are all the same, Mallory. We are more.”

She shivers, the words bringing back Michael's voice, spoken to her in such glittering, golden tones while they created their dark secret.

The angel hears something Mallory doesn't and urgency tightens her features. “Listen to me, my sweet girl. You are the child of divinity, Mallory. And so is _he._ Remember, even the devil is God's creation.”

Mallory blinks in confusion, more questions bubbling to the surface. But the woman's blinding form grows fuzzy and distant, drawing away from Mallory as if pulled from behind. “The blood of angels runs in your veins. It's not too late.”

Mallory wakes with a gasp, chest heaving while she tries to catch her breath. She swings her legs out of bed, ready to run to his room and – reality catches up with her. Michael is gone.

 _He's evil,_ her mind reminds her, and suddenly she's gasping for a different reason as tears drip off her chin. She crawls back under her covers, hand clasped over her mouth to muffle her broken breaths.

* * *

 

Brittle cracks against her window wake Mallory later that night. She peeks through the curtains to see a tall figure shrouded in shadows standing beneath it, one hand raised. She recognizes the lithe build and wavy hair immediately. She would recognize Michael anywhere. She waves at him to stop throwing rocks and he points to the front gate. With a tiny huff of frustration, she yanks a sweater on over her filmy nightdress and pads barefoot to the front door.

He stands just inside the gate now, waiting for her. She rushes to his side and pushes him out of the house grounds, dragging him around the corner to hide behind the dark safety of an ancient beech tree. She snatches her hands back and keeps a safe distance between them. “What are you doing here?” she hisses, taking in his knotted, dirty hair and the muddied hems of his slacks. She'd never seen him look anything except immaculate.

His voice shakes. “I had to see you.”

“It's not safe for you to be here.”

The corner of his lip twitches in a cold smirk. “I don't fear the witches.”

“You should,” she snaps. “Cordelia is determined to find you.”

He scoffs. “Let her. Their power is inconsequential.”

“Then why did you run?” she says with a frustrated wave.

His gaze tips to the ground. “I couldn't bear to see your face, after....after you learned what I am.”

Her throat is suddenly tight and prickling. “Then it's true.” Up to this moment, she'd almost convinced herself that Cordelia and the others were wrong, somehow. That the ghosts of his childhood home were wrong.

His features grow icy and hard. “It is.”

She sags against the beech, trying to focus on the ridges of bark against her spine. She shakes her head.

“I don't believe you, Michael. I know you.”

His lip curls. “Someone else once told me that, someone I thought loved me. He was just another liar who betrayed me.”

She chokes on a sob, shaking her head furiously. “No.”

“Yes,” he breathes, almost with a chuckle. “Do you know how many people I've killed?” His tone is prideful but laced with a ragged horror that almost seems directed at himself. “Do you know what I've _done_?”

Mallory wraps her arms around her middle and sags in half. “Cordelia told me – some of it.”

He steps closer, close enough for the heat of his skin to scorch her, close enough for his intoxicating fragrance of smoke and leather and wilderness to fill her nose. He tilts her chin up with one finger. Sparks buzz through Mallory at the contact point, a live wire pouring electricity into her blood. “My father is Satan, Mallory. I cannot deny him. I cannot deny my purpose.”

She smacks his hand away from her face and straightens up. “And what purpose is that exactly?” She says, advancing on him. “To destroy the world? To bring about the end of days?”

His form steels and he steps forward again, putting them nearly nose to nose. “To create a new world, free from these pathetic rules that humans impose on each other. Free from hypocrisy.” His head tilts and his gaze drops to her lips. She finds her chest suddenly tight and full with a pounding heart. “You could join me, Mallory. You don't belong here.”

She laughs, bitter and sharp. The absurdity of this whole conversation hits her full-force – talking about the fate of the world at the hands of Michael, the _Antichrist._

And just as quickly it's gone, replaced by the solid, terrifying knowledge that _she doesn't care._

“Michael,” she pleads, voice breaking on his name. The sound digs into his chest and makes it hard to breathe.

She's in his arms before she can think and he gathers her shaking limbs in his own, pressing kisses to her brow. “Please don't do this,” she begs. She doesn't see the steel in his eyes.

“This is my destiny,” he argues, far too softly for the meaning of those words.

Her expression hardens and she pulls back to look at his face. Her dream echoes in her mind. “It's not,” she insists. “Even the Devil is God's creation.”

He lets out a small, derisive snort but doubt swims in his gaze.

“The blood of angels runs in your veins,” she whispers. “Before the fall, before everything, your father was _good._ And so are you.”

His eyes trace her tear-stained features as he caresses her cheeks, wiping away the shining tracks. He shakes his head and grief clouds his gaze. “If I turn away now, it means it was all for nothing.”

She doesn't have to ask what he means, she knows - the deaths, the destruction. He's desperate to give meaning to his darkness.

“I'm not good.”

Before she can respond, a wave of power hits them both and knocks them off their feet. Her world turns black.

* * *

 

Mallory wakes with a groan and a throbbing head. A cool hand briefly presses to her forehead and voices murmur.

“She's awake.”

Cordelia's face comes into focus. “Mallory? Can you hear me?”

She groans again, trying to get her bearings. “What happened?”

Cordelia's lips twist and Mallory's memories catch up. She gasps and jerks upright, sending her vision spinning.

“Where's Michael?”

Madison snorts from across the room. “I told you. He's got her hypnotized or something.”

“I'm not,” Mallory snaps at the blonde woman. “I'm not,” she repeats to Cordelia in a near-whine. “Is he okay?”

Cordelia's expression is inscrutable. “He's physically unharmed. We've restrained him in the cellar.”

“Cordelia, I know this sounds insane, but you have to trust me. Michael isn't evil.”

Madison laughs. “Tell that to the girl whose heart he ate. Or those cops he killed. Or the souls of the women he destroyed.”

“There's still good in him,” Mallory says. “I know it.”

“Maybe so,” Cordelia acquiesces, too quietly for Madison to hear. “But it's too late for that. He's started down a path he can't come back from.”

Mallory sags against her Supreme, hiding her welling eyes in the older woman's shoulder. “I can't believe that. You don't know him.”

Madison rolls her eyes as she draws closer. “And you do,” she snarks. “Please, just stop.”

Mallory can barely stand to ask, but she has to. “What are you going to do to him?”

Cordelia doesn't answer, merely pulls Mallory into her motherly embrace as the younger girl begins to sob.

* * *

 

Cordelia stands in the cellar, surveying the boy before her. The one who would be their undoing. He's stretched out on a table, bound to its surface with powerful spells. Unconscious like this, without his usual knowing smirk and framed by golden waves, his graceful features are peaceful. Angelic.

She'd sent Behold and Myrtle away with no explanation. They'd taken their stacks of spell books with them. Everyone was frantically trying to formulate a plan to destroy Michael, indefinitely. It was hard to fathom how they could kill the Antichrist and keep him that way without sacrificing everyone else in the process, but there had to be a method. But first, there was something she needed to do.

She lays a soft palm across his temple and begins to whisper words to herself. A cross between a memory and an identity spell. She wasn't hiding his true identity from him – she wasn't nearly strong enough for that. But she was taking something from his mind.

Mallory.

The girl was their best hope for survival should they fail to destroy Michael.

After Cordelia finishes here, she would slip into Mallory's bedroom and place a true identity spell on the girl. Then one for Coco. The coven was going to send them both away and hide them inside of ordinary lives. Coco was really just a protective measure for Mallory. She could sense danger, subconsciously, and Mallory had to be kept safe.

Wiping Mallory from Michael's mind was to protect her. But taking Michael from Mallory's mind was to protect all of them. Whatever was between the young couple was powerful and ancient and it terrified Cordelia. She didn't know if Mallory was strong enough to resist his darkness and she wasn't about to find out.

They had to be kept apart from each other, no matter the cost.

* * *

 

Three days later, Ms. Robichaux's Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies is a pile of smoldering ashes. A handful of Cordelia's girls don't make it out, and she slumps on the sidewalk out front, her heart and mind a ruined mess from the loss.

As she expected, Michael had escaped. She knows this is retribution, for imprisoning him, and then for burning Ms. Mead and the two warlocks at the stake. She's never more grateful that she took his memories of Mallory. She can't even imagine what more he would have done otherwise.

_Maybe he wouldn't have done anything at all. Maybe Mallory was right..._

She pushes away the traitorous thoughts, lets her pain and fury drown them out.

Michael Langdon would pay for what he's done. Cordelia only prayed she could get to him before he burns the world down too.

* * *

 

**Now**

“Michael.” A satin-soft voice weaves into his mind, pulling him gently from unconsciousness.

When he opens his eyes, he swears he must be dead.

“Mallory?” He croaks around a raw throat.

She pulls him up, propping his torso against her chest between her legs. “Drink this,” she encourages him, tipping a bitter-smelling cup to his lips. The emerald liquid stings on its way down and a round of violent coughing consumes him.

She rubs a soothing hand up and down his back until he finally catches his breath.

“Am I in Hell?” He can think of nothing worse than an eternity with Mallory, knowing it's not real.

Her breathy laugh tickles his cheek. “No. You're alive. We're both alive.”

“This is real?” He says, still disbelieving.

She sets the cup down and curls around him. “Yes.”

A thousand words fill his mouth: _You shouldn't be here, where are the others, why didn't you kill me, what happened, what did you do -_

But only one thought makes it out.

“I'm sorry,” he sobs, crumpling in her arms. “I'm so sorry.”

“I know,” she whispers over and over, crushing him to her chest. That entrancing power that binds them rushes back in full, consuming force, blasting away all her fears and doubts about what she's done to the coven. She was positive she hadn't hurt any of them – not permanently. In the lull following what they believed was Michael's death, she'd stunned them all with a wave of power. In the few seconds it had bought her, she'd snatched Michael and transmuted the two them as far away as she could muster. They'd appeared somewhere in a barren field, scrubbed clean by nuclear radiation.

She'd dragged him to the nearest decrepit building – what looked like an old farmhouse – and conjured some supplies before her abilities gave out, the well of power exhausted by her fight with Michael and then subsequent attempt to save him.

Now the bond that flows between them restores her soul, filling her back to brimming with fresh, unblemished strength. From the healthy flush in Michael's cheeks, she concludes it has the same effect on him as well. She snaps her fingers at the hearth and a fire blazes to life, bathing the room in heat and gold.

Emotions flit across Michael's face so quickly she can barely catch them. They feel foreign and stiff to Michael – his face is unpracticed after years of keeping a smooth, crafted mask.

“Why did you save me?”

She bites her lip as she considers an answer and then finally shrugs. “I couldn't let them kill you.”

He studies her face. “Does this mean you've changed your mind?”

“Changed my mind?” She echoes with a confused look before their conversation from years ago returns to her. Something dark coils in her stomach. “Michael...”

He roughly sits up with a frown. “Mallory, I told you, this is my purpose! This is why I exist!”

She sets her jaw. “To rebuild the world.”

“No,” he says. “To create a _new_ world.”

“Over the bones and ashes of the old,” she adds with a glare. “Which were put there by you.”

A tiny smirk touches his mouth. “I did nothing, all destruction was wrought by human hands.”

She scoffs. “And your presence had _nothing_ to do with that.”

They're standing on opposite sides of the room now and his gaze is cold. “They did nothing they could not have accomplished without me. Don't blame me for humanity's evils.”

“So what does that make you? An opportunist?”

He almost smiles. “Something like that.”

Her anger winks out abruptly and her shoulders sag. “Michael,” she murmurs, reaching for him. He responds immediately, face softening as he pulls her close. “Don't make me choose.”

“I don't think there's anything I can say that will make you happy,” he replies.

She stretches onto her toes and nuzzles her nose across his cheek. “Then don't say anything. Just be here with me tonight.”

He finds her lips and they meet in a hesitant kiss. The curve of his full mouth against hers is sinful in its rightness. She winds her fingers through his long locks, still damp from his brush with death, and over his chest. He feels leaner and harder than she remembers, but the adoring tilt of his mouth and the energy between them is the same. His body against hers is an apology, a plea, a prayer.

“Did you remember me?”

He pauses in his descent down the column of her throat. “Not at first.”

“Did you remember before you let me die?”

Her words are knives, slicing away his pretenses and dark veneers.

“Yes.”

Her chest hitches and he slides to his knees and presses his ear to her heartbeat, reveling in the thick, liquid thrum of it. “I remembered. But I didn't want you to die.”

“You didn't save me.”

“I gave you the chance to save yourself. You refused.”

She pushes him away and holds him at arms length, looking down into his ocean-deep eyes. They're rimmed red and brimming with regret and misery.

“If you'd know who I was, if you remembered, would you have said yes? Would you have come with me to the Sanctuary?” He blinks and a tear escapes.

She lets out a deep breath. “I don't know.”

He pulls her back, burying his face in her chest again. “The Darkness is always there. It's half of me. The stronger half.”

She grabs a handful of his hair and yanks his head back. “No, it's not.”

He gulps and his pupils explode outward. “I'm not strong enough to deny my Father.”

She presses her thumbs into the hollows of his cheekbones. “I don't believe that.”

His bottom lip trembles. “Will you forgive me?” The question almost carries a trace of mocking.

She traces the path of a tear down his face. “I forgive you.” Her answer is pure in its earnestness.

He lets out a half-laugh, half-sob. “You always have.

She sinks to his level, straddling his hips. “Promise me you'll abandon Him. Promise me you'll find a new path.”

He chokes on his words. “I can't.”

She leans her forehead to his. “Please.”

His hands are a vice around her waist. “It's too late. I can't change the past.”

She rolls her hips against his, eliciting a strangled moan from him as she grinds her hot core against his hard length. _But I can._

She silences his next words with her lips. Each kiss, every touch, is bliss and torture and turns her heart into a screaming wildfire. A plan forms in her mind, but she keeps it to herself. It might fail. This might be the only thing they have – just a tiny sliver of time in a nuclear Hell before fate rips them apart again. She knows he feels it too, the poisonous desperation that stains and bites at their insides with a caustic sting. The antidote is their bodies, moving together in a frantic rhythm. It's each moan from Mallory when he sucks her perfect rose-dusk nipples in his mouth, it's his shuddering frame when she sheaths his cock in her slippery cunt, it's their mingled gasps when he thrusts into her, it's the scarlet bloom of blood that she coaxes with her nails from his muscled back. He keeps one hand between them, rubbing torturous circles against her clit and she whines every time the strokes hit just right. “Come with me, sweetheart,” he growls, his voice all succulent velvet and nightshade wine, and she can't deny him. She can't deny him anything.

Heaven and Hell collide and pleasure screams through their blood.

They grip each other in a crushing stranglehold as they come down, come back to their bodies, slip back into reality.

Afterwards, Mallory waits for his breaths to grow shallow and even. Satisfied he's asleep, she extricates herself from their tangle of limbs and gets dressed. She briefly runs her hand over his head, resting her palm on his cheek for just a second, allowing herself a tiny fraction of a goodbye. She straightens, closes her eyes, and thinks of Cordelia.

* * *

 

Cordelia and the others are still in the bunker. Everyone gasps when Mallory appears before them, putting an immediate end to their conversation. Then everyone is talking at once, yelling, demanding, rushing over to her.

“Where's Michael?”

“What did you do?”

“We thought you were dead!”

Mallory doesn't answer, just motions to Cordelia. She's counting on Cordelia's endless desire to save and protect for her plan to work. “I need to talk to you.”

Her Supreme surveys the room before nodding to Mallory. She ignores the glares and gasps and accusing looks that follow them until they shut the doors of Ms. Venable's office.

The moment they are alone, Cordelia hugs Mallory. “What happened? I was so worried he'd done something to you.”

She smiles at the older woman. “I'm sorry if I injured anyone.”

Cordelia blanches and jerks back. “ _You_ did that? Why?”

Mallory doesn't answer. “I know how to solve everything. But I need your help. And I need you to promise me you won't hurt him.”

Cordelia studies her face. “So you remember.”

She blinks rapidly, fighting back tears. “I remember _.”_

“Where is he?”

She shakes her head. “No. I won't give him to you.”

“Mallory, you don't know what you're saying.”

“I do,” she hisses. “And I want everyone to stop telling me what to do.” She takes a steadying breath.

“He can't be saved,” Cordelia protests.

Mallory watches her with a detached sadness. “Not like this he can't. Cordelia, you don't know what he's been through. What's been done to him. It would turn anyone evil, Satan for a father or not.”

Cordelia's voice wavers. “Then I don't understand.”

“He needs a fresh start. Before all the pain and the betrayal. He needs a second chance.”

Understanding dawns in her eyes. “You're going to change everything back.”

Mallory nods. “I'm going to try. I have to try. I'm going to save the world. Including Michael.”

Admiration shines in Cordelia's eyes. “I'll help you.”

* * *

 

Mallory isn't completely sure how far back she turns the clock. Time and space swirl around her in an incandescent hurricane of stars and dust and potential. Finally, everything just settles.

When she opens her eyes, the brilliant New Orleans morning light bathes the white walls around her and she breaks into a grin. Ms. Robichaux's Academy, back from the dead. Her face stares back from the reflection of a window – younger, with the innocent wide eyes Mallory used to hate because she felt they made her look like a child. This time, her youthful countenance is a welcome sight, because it means her plan worked.

Cordelia enters wearing a silky floral blouse tucked into a cream pencil skirt. Mallory remembers this day – it was the day she came to live at the Academy. But everything feels different.

The other witches move around the house as in her memory – unaware of their future, their end, their return.

Cordelia settles into a chair next to her, features drawn and serious.

“Mallory? What do you remember?”

“Everything,” she breathes. A smile touches Cordelia's face. “I can never thank you enough.”

“Do you think this will work?”

Mallory's vision blurs. “We have to try. Please, Cordelia. I need him.”

She shakes her head just a fraction. “I don't understand why.”

Mallory's eyes flutter shut for a second. “I'm not a witch.”

Cordelia tilts her head and lays a hand on Mallory's arm. “What do you mean?”

“I'm something else. Like Michael.”

Cordelia snatches her hand back. “Explain.”

“I know it sounds crazy. He's the son of Satan, right? Well Satan was once -”

“An angel,” she finishes, eyes wide. “Your father?”

Mallory nods again. “We spoke, in a dream.”

She lets out a long breath and then leans back in her chair, watching Mallory. “It's worth trying.”

“We have to find him.”

“What if we're too late?”

Mallory's chest constricts at Cordelia's words. She can't consider that possibility. Cordelia sees her anxiety and squeezes her hand. “We'll deal with it when we get there.”

* * *

 

Michael thinks he might break. Thinks he _is_ breaking. Another person dead, because of him.

His Grandma's body is already growing cold and stiff as he cries into her shoulder, apologizing over and over.

He freezes with surprise when there's a loud knock at the front door. This house is unoccupied, and has been for a while. Who could possibly be here?

He sweeps a blond curl back from her weathered skin and contemplates ignoring it until the visitor goes away. But the knocks keep coming.

Sniffling, he tries to wipe his face clean as he stomps to the door and pulls it open.

Two women stand before him – one older, taller, with light hair. But his gaze is immediately pulled to the other woman – younger, shorter, with dark hair and dark eyes that light a glow in his chest. She cries his name before a blinding grin breaks across her face and she launches herself into Michael's arms. He staggers back in shock, but the weight of her small curves feels strangely _right_ against his body and he finds his arms closing around her.

“You're alive, I found you, I did it,” she's whispering over and over, he thinks to himself, but he's not sure.

She pulls back, eyes radiant as they trace his features. She slips a few fingers through a lock of his hair. “I'm Mallory. And I have so much to tell you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> And the answer to all your "but how did they-" questions is MAGIC BITCH.  
> They did magic. The part about him drowning in shallow water is from that BTS photo of Cody looking absolutely wrecked.
> 
> Thank you for reading this hastily written trash. 
> 
> *spoilers kind of* Episode 8 destroyed me and I had to give Michael some kind of happiness. My heart is permanently broken from seeing him cry so much.
> 
> Title is from After the Fall by Chelsea Wolfe.


End file.
